Nothing Lost

by John Gregory Dunne

  And the reason was, Eugene Hicks said, and you know it, Marjorie, was there were these four young women making common cause with the Confederacy in a Union jail in Kansas City, and that jail collapsed and killed those four young women, crushed the life right out of them, and that was why Quantrill rode into Lawrence, Quantrill was Quantrill, always an eye for an eye.

  Nothing wrong with that, Joe Salmon the barber said.

  Quite possibly that’s so, Eugene, Joe, Marjorie Hudnut said, twisting the yellow ribbon that was pinned to her dress, but I am not sure that Miss Kean came all the way down to Regent to hear about Mr. Quantrill. That is ancient history, Eugene. You too, Joe.

  It was Eugene Hicks’s pointer, Jesse, who had discovered the body of Edgar Parlance. Right out there in the middle of that field, Eugene Hicks said. There was a flock of geese, and I had taken down one, a traveling shot, left to right, like skeet, and I thought that was what Jesse was standing over, and then I saw Gar. Couldn’t make him out, of course, didn’t know it was Gar, fact is, I never knew Gar, it was Marjorie who knew him, and Joe here, and Claude, but there wasn’t much left of his face, and his thigh where those boys skinned him, it was not a pretty sight, Jesse was guarding him like he was that goddamn goose, I really don’t know why you bother defending that Lajoie boy, Miss Kean, he was no damn good, from what I hear.

  No damn good at all, Claude Applewhite said. Claude Applewhite was pastor of Regent’s Bethany Methodist Church, and Edgar Parlance had lived in the apartment above his garage, paying for his keep by raking the leaves and washing his car.

  You knew Duane Lajoie? Teresa said.

  I heard about him, Claude Applewhite said.

  Gar played Santa Claus at the annual Christmas party at the library, Marjorie Hudnut said. Best Santa we ever had.

  A colored Santa Claus, Joe Salmon, the barber, said. That’s what kind of town Regent is, they have a colored Santa Claus, and it’s no big damn deal, like it would be in some places.

  Where you from, Miss Kean? Marjorie Hudnut said. They have colored Santa Clauses there?

  Yes, Teresa said.

  Fancy that, Eugene Hicks said.

  He did the barbecue outside the courthouse on the Fourth of July, Claude Applewhite said. He had his own sauce recipe, guarded it with his life, so hot it made the top of my head sweat.

  Absolutely, Marjorie Hudnut said.

  I was wondering, Pastor Applewhite, Teresa said, if we—Mr. Cline and I—could take a look at Mr. Parlance’s apartment.

  What do you want to do that for? Claude Applewhite said.

  Because we have a court order that says we can, I said.

  Brutus won’t let you in there, Eugene Hicks said.

  The court order does not exempt Sheriff Mayes, I said.

  You know Jocko Cannon is working with Brutus, Joe Salmon said.

  Community service, Claude Applewhite said. He got a hundred hours after that deal in the Orange Bowl.

  Teresa seemed not have heard about the Orange Bowl incident.

  That Orange Bowl deal had a rank smell about it, Eugene Hicks said.

  That referee was on the take, Joe Salmon said. What I hear is he had Florida State and the spread.

  He shouldn’t have done that to the Rhinos, Marjorie Hudnut said. It wasn’t fair. The Rhinos had the game won.

  Jocko says he was a sodomite, Claude Applewhite said.

  Claude, there are ladies present, Joe Salmon said.

  Beg your pardon, Miss Kean, Marjorie, Claude Applewhite said. But you’ve got to admit, Marjorie, there’s a lot of books in that library of yours that talk about sodomites. Too many, you ask me.

  I don’t do a count, Claude, Marjorie Hudnut said.

  A fag is what he said, Claude, Eugene Hicks corrected. Jewish fella.

  I didn’t know that part of it, Claude Applewhite said. That explains it, then.

  Jocko’ll get a good workout with Brutus, Joe Salmon said. Got this big damn rowing machine right there in the office.

  Brutus put up a basket in the parking lot, Eugene Hicks said. Him and Brutus play one-on-one.

  That’s seven hundred pounds of horse playing basketball, Claude Applewhite said. They take up the whole damn parking lot, those two.

  Scarcely enough room for that Mercedes automobile Jocko bought with his signing bonus, Eugene Hicks said. Prettiest car in Regent. He’s got those people of his shining it up every minute.

  Won’t let anyone park next to it, Marjorie Hudnut said.

  He takes three parking places, Eugene Hicks said. One on either side, plus the one he’s in. He’s afraid of getting a scratch on it.

  You scratch that car, you’ll hear from Jocko, Claude Applewhite said, you can bet the mortgage on that.

  Brutus will teach him all the tricks, Joe Salmon said. What Brutus don’t know about football ain’t worth knowing. Damn shame about that knee of his.

  The NFL lost a hell of a linebacker, Eugene Hicks said.

  We got a hell of a sheriff, though, Joe Salmon said.

  We seemed to be wandering away from the subject of Edgar Parlance.

  Did Edgar Parlance ever have any visitors? I asked Claude Applewhite. In his place above your garage.

  Gar had lots of friends, Marjorie Hudnut said. Didn’t he, Joe?

  This whole town, Joe Salmon said.

  Claude Applewhite looked at me for a moment, suspicion slowly clouding his face. What kind of visitors? he said.

  Just visitors, I said. People. When he wasn’t being Santa Claus. Or making the best barbecue sauce in Loomis County.

  Damn lawyers, Claude Applewhite said.

  As you probably have already discerned, Teresa had, after a fashion, previously met Jocko Cannon. It was Jocko, of course, who had tried to block her way into the Rhino Carlton-Plaza after our first meeting in the Law Building. To Teresa it was an unexceptional street encounter she saw no reason to mention until she saw Jocko again in Brutus Mayes’s office, glistening with sweat and wearing the torn and grimy white T-shirt that said GUNS, GUTS, AND GLORY ARE WHAT MADE AMERICA GREAT.

  Jocko, not surprisingly, did not remember Teresa. Women did not generally show up on Jocko’s radar screen. Unless they were underneath him. Pinned between his legs like a sacked quarterback.

  The hundred hours of community service Jocko Cannon was doing under the supervision of Brutus Mayes seemed designed mainly to make Jocko physically ready for training camp with the Miami Dolphins, who had chosen him as the twenty-ninth take in the first round of the NFL draft. While doing his community service, Jocko was attended by an entourage including a barber, a wardrobe consultant, driver, agent, his own personal merchandiser from I-Bod, with whom he had signed a commercial contract, and a floating contingent of pals from SMU who picked up the laundry, got the girls, and roughed up anyone who invaded Jocko’s space, the perimeters of Jocko’s space constantly changing according to the volatility of Jocko’s mood.

  Jocko’s posse. A surly bunch. Mostly large. All on the payroll. All who laughed at his jokes. No one laughed harder than Brutus Mayes.

  I thought Jocko was atmosphere. My mistake. I did not anticipate that even Jocko would play a role in what I did not then know would become a narrative.

  The narrative.

  Jocko’s Mercedes first. A silver S-600, reclining front bucket seats with built-in ventilation, Bose sound system, xenon headlights, Distronic cruise control, ZAS cylinder shutoff system, two TVs in the headrests, a DVD player, Sony PlayStation, fax machine, color copier, laptop computer, two hidden video cameras, one in the driver’s sun visor, the other in the back seat reading light above the rear window, sticker price $115,200.00, fully loaded $241,945.00, tax and license not included, tax and license bringing the whole package up to two-five-oh.

  Two-five-oh is ballpark, the I-Bod representative said as he buffed a fingerprint from the metallic paint job of the S-600. The I-Bod representative said his name was Duke. Duke did not offer a last name. Nor did any of the posse. There was Bobo, th
ere was Pig, there was Sonny, there was Tater. The other names I can’t remember. When they weren’t doing for Jocko, they were working out, lifting weights, buffing their biceps. Talking about pussy.

  Actually the incident at the Orange Bowl was a blessing in disguise, Duke from I-Bod said. Of course it knocks Jocko down to a low firstround draft choice instead of top five, it’s all that image crap the NFL is into, the referee blew the call, everyone knows that, Cohen his name was, the last play of the game, a Hail Mary pass, for Christ’s sake, you don’t call roughing the passer, football is a collision sport, you can’t blame Jocko, you can’t fault his intensity either, he’s a winner, intensity is his middle name, the Rhinos would’ve been national champions if it hadn’t been for that Cohen’s call. Jocko’s going to be a credit to the I-Bod logo for years to come, you can bet on it, only the winner goes to dinner, this young man is going to be the first nose-tackle superstar in TV commercials, and isn’t this vehicle a beauty, two-five-oh ballpark, a lot of automobile for a lot of young man.

  Teresa recognized Jocko Cannon immediately. She had already noticed the poster Brutus Mayes had pinned to the bulletin board in his office: SEE DICK DRINK. SEE DICK DRIVE. SEE DICK DIE. DON’T BE A DICK.

  It should say “dickhead,” Brutus, Jocko Cannon said, sweating and heaving on the rowing machine, shaking his head so vigorously that his perspiration sprayed Teresa and me. Don’t you think so? he said to Teresa.

  The posse arranged around what available space there was in Brutus Mayes’s small office giggled.

  Only one other thing you do with this kind of motion, Jocko Cannon said as he continued rowing. In, out. In, out. In, out. The posse exchanged high fives.

  Teresa concentrated on the photo blowups of Brutus Mayes as a Detroit Lion that covered the walls of the office.

  Gatorade me, Jocko Cannon said. One of his retainers reached into a cooler, produced a bottle of Gatorade, and passed it to him.

  The whole team wore Parlance doodads at the Orange Bowl, Jocko Cannon said between gulps, as he drained the bottle of Gatorade. We all wrote the letters EP in Magic Marker on the inside of our helmets.

  Goddamn, what a swell thing to do, Jocko, Brutus Mayes said.

  Jocko Cannon looked at me. That referee was a homosexual, you know what I mean, counselor?

  Name of Cohen, Brutus Mayes said.

  Relative of yours, was he? Jocko Cannon asked in my general direction.

  More giggling from the posse.

  We’d like to see where Mr. Parlance lived, Sheriff, Teresa said.

  Why? Brutus Mayes said.

  Teresa handed Brutus Mayes the court order allowing us to examine Edgar Parlance’s rooms above Claude Applewhite’s garage.

  That Duane Lajoie broke up this jail when he heard Gover had ratted him out, Brutus Mayes said, not looking at the court order.

  Should’ve taken care of him then, Brutus, Jocko Cannon said. He seemed to be evaluating Teresa’s sexual potential. That would’ve saved the state a lot of trouble. But then I never would’ve met Miss What’s-Her -Name here, comes down to Regent to defend Duane Lajoie. Her and her friend. Mr. Cline.

  He was standing astride the rowing machine, wiping his face with his sweat-soaked guns-and-glory T-shirt. My daddy tells me you used to work for Gerry Wormwold, Jocko said. Until he fired you.

  The posse looked to see if Jocko Cannon would get a rise out of me. Not a chance. Teresa had nailed him. An ape with a pea-sized brain.

  Gargantua. I have to say I loved the touch about Gargantua.

  Goddamn court order, Brutus Mayes said. I had dealt with him when I was with the A.G. THE BIGGEST LAWMAN IN THE STATE was his campaign slogan. He hated court orders. His first instinct was always to balk, like the linebacker he once was. You had to push back. Explain it was not Lions v. Cowboys. He thought it was like making him say, Yeah, Marse.

  Reta! Brutus Mayes shouted.

  His secretary peeked into the office. Reta was wearing drop earrings shaped like handcuffs.

  Get the key to Gar’s place, Brutus Mayes said. He looked at Jocko. You go with them, Jocko, make sure they don’t mess with anything.

  They mess with anything, they mess with me, Brutus, Jocko Cannon said. And then to his posse: Uniform me.

  Jocko Cannon took up most of the space in the tiny spare room above Claude Applewhite’s garage where Edgar Parlance had lived prior to his murder. In his custom-tailored sheriff’s uniform, five-gallon hat, and mirrored sunglasses, he looked like one of the guards in Cool Hand Luke. The room had a sink, a daybed, a portable heater, and a bedside table on which was a lamp with a three-way bulb, a pencil, and a notepad from Regent Pharmacy: YOU CALL, WE DELIVER. One of Edgar Parlance’s odd jobs, according to the Kiowa Times-Ledger, was working as a delivery boy for the drugstore, “a chore that brought Gar into homes all over Regent, where he’d stop for a cup of coffee and exchange the time of day, one reason why his death was so keenly felt in this rural community.” There was a small refrigerator and a wooden drying rack on which he apparently hung the clothes he washed in the sink. There was a mirror above the sink and a medicine cabinet containing a plastic water glass, two toothbrushes, a package of five Gillette MicroTrac disposable razors, a can of Barbasol shaving cream, a bottle of Scope mouthwash, a tube of Colgate toothpaste, and a tube of Tuck’s hemorrhoidal ointment. The toilet was at the foot of the stairs leading up to the spare room. There was a closet with no door except a sheet, and in the closet two pairs of jeans, four denim shirts, three pairs of heavy-duty yellow work shoes, a fleece-lined red-and-black-checked winter lumber jacket, and two baseball hats, one with a logo that said ZIV CHEMICALS, the other with a USM rhinoceros. A pair of earmuffs hung from a hook in the wall. In a green wooden military locker at the foot of the daybed there were several pairs of underwear, some socks (the socks and underwear freshly laundered and neatly folded), two pairs of worn work gloves, a Bible, a hand iron, and an overdue book of Ansel Adams photographs of Yosemite from the Regent public library.

  I got the look of the room immediately. It had the anonymity of a prison cell maintained by a particularly fastidious inmate. There was no hint of personality anywhere. No sense of who Edgar Parlance was. Or what had led Duane Lajoie and Bryant Gover to skin him alive.

  The only objects out of the ordinary were thirteen twisted votive candles on a serving platter placed on top of the refrigerator. It was as if they had been melted and then sculpted into strange otherworldly shapes by a demented artist whose medium was wax.

  I had a hunch about the candles. They were included on the sheriff’s inventory of the apartment, but not the exact number. Approximately ten, the inventory said. You could count on Brutus Mayes not to do things right.

  Jocko picked up one of the candles and began playing catch with it. Throw it up with one hand, catch it with the other. He flipped it over his shoulder and backhanded it without turning his head. Teresa was reflected in his mirrored sunglasses. He snatched a second candle from the plate and began to juggle the two, and then without missing a throw, grabbed a third.

  The juggling seemed to be Gargantua’s mating call.

  Teresa scrutinized the contents of the medicine cabinet. It was as if nothing interested her more than the Scope, the Barbasol, and the Tuck’s hemorrhoid ointment. What did not interest her was Jocko Cannon.

  Jocko was so close to her that his knee was grazing her hip. I was the Jew fag. I was not there. I took advantage of the opportunity.

  I pinched a candle and put it my pocket.

  Let’s move on, Teresa, I said. There’s nothing more we need to see here.

  Merle Orvis had a teardrop tattooed under her right eye.

  She had been in and out of juvenile detention since she was twelve.

  Her last detention report said that she was five feet three inches tall and weighed one hundred fifty-nine pounds.

  Merle Orvis and her son Boy lived in the Wuthering Heights Mobile Home Park, suggesting that someone had a sense of humor (not
likely), an affinity for Emily Brontë (even less likely), or had simply appropriated the name as classy after seeing one of the many film versions of the book available on the cable movie channels. The park was across from the Regent town dump and next door to the VFW post (BINGO WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY, PUBLIC WELCOME) and a topless bar called Bob’s. Bob’s had originally been called Boobs, Merle Orvis said, but the fucking town council, a bunch of limp dicks, forced it to change its name. The sign outside now said B OBS, without the apostrophe and with the first o painted over. Merle Orvis had danced at Boobs until the owner discovered she was only fourteen, and it was a penal-code offense for a minor to be engaged as a lap dancer. A pall of smoke hung over the dump from the small fires that burned trash day and night. Most of the mobile homes, including Merle Orvis’s, had wind chimes, and when a breeze came up it blew the smoke and fetid fumes from the dump over the court and rustled the chimes so that the effect was like listening to a concerto for xylophones as you were choking to death.

  Inside, Merle Orvis’s trailer was a pigpen of dirty dishes, unemptied wastebaskets, open garbage bags, ashtrays filled to overflowing, and moldy French fries that seemed to be growing out of the sprung couches. Boy had no other name, although occasionally Merle Orvis called him Baby. After Baby was born, she said, she had made arrangements for him to be adopted by what she called a couple of muff divers from San Francisco, but then decided that lesbian parents would not give Boy the kind of upbringing she thought he deserved. Boy’s birth had never been registered, and officially he did not exist. On Merle Orvis’s rung of the societal ladder, birth control was seen as a dreary restriction—messy, expensive, unspontaneous—and because babies conferred a kind of status on teen mothers with nothing else going for them, abortion was regarded with disfavor. Women as well as men seemed to accept rape as an irrevocable clause in the sexual contract; Loomis County had not prosecuted a rape in seven years, or secured a rape conviction in the twelve it had been operating as an independent legal entity in the state court system. Boy wore no clothes and was not yet toilet-trained, although he was almost three. He piddled constantly, and was still being nursed. Titty, he would say to his mother, and Merle Orvis would hoist a flabby breast from under her T-shirt. Boy would line up the nipple and pop it into his mouth, picking his nose and viewing his surroundings as he slurped his mother’s milk, sucking until he was full. Shitty, he would then say, and squat and crap. His legs and his ass were stained with dried excrement. The only other word Boy seemed to know was “Lester.” Lester was Merle Orvis’s current boyfriend. Lester Ray. Lester Ray, as it turned out, was the son of Clyde Ray, who had seen Duane Lajoie’s 1989 Ford 4x4 with the four-pin trailer-tow harness making tracks down County Road 21 the night that Edgar Parlance was murdered. Like his father, Lester Ray never made eye contact. Nor did he volunteer a single word all the time Teresa and I were talking to Merle Orvis. I do not think Teresa in her wildest fantasies imagined that she would separately meet two members of the Ray family in a single day.